QED Naval has gone out to tender for power take-off (PTO) for a Subhub ID tidal energy technology that forsees moving from one turbine to a 5MW array of five, and on to an array size of 30 MW. Last year QED won revenue support funding through the government’s contracts for difference (CfD) incentive scheme as part of Auction Round 5 (AR5). Its Welsh subsidiary Mor Energy Ltd has been awarded 4.5MW at its Morlais site in North Wales, at a strike price of £198/MWh. The Morlais development is situated off the northwest coast of Holy Island.
The company’s self-deploying submersible tidal platform, the Subhub Industrial Demonstrator (ID), works with subsidiary company Tocardo’s horizontal axis tidal turbines. The tender requires the delivery of a single turbine-generator PTO configuration in 2024 for testing before subsea deployment.
The Torcardo turbine has a 14m blade diameter and QED’s next generation of Subhub ID will feature three 350kV turbine-generator pairs, which will be individually controlled and then combined into a single grid output. QED Naval’s new supplier will provide the various power take-off circuitry to support delivery of grid compliant power into the National Grid at distribution level.
QED’s 1MW industrial scale Subhub-ID platform was developed with £3 million support